Free Republic

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Four schools within the Houston Independent School District will be renamed and four others removed from the discussion after approval Thursday night. Just after 7pm, trustees approved a plan to begin the process of renaming four schools with Confederate titles. Those schools include Henry Grady Middle School, Richard Dowling Middle School, Lee High School and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson Middle School. Trustees approve plan to begin process renaming 4 schools to represent #HISD values/diversity: @GradyMS @DowlingMS @LeeHSHouston, Jackson MS — Houston ISD (@HoustonISD) January 15, 2016 Four other schools with ties to the Confederacy were removed from the...

Since unexpectedly jumping into the Republican race this past summer, Donald Trump has shaped the political conversation, dominated the national polls, and bended long-held electoral laws to his will. But on Thursday night in South Carolina, the blustery billionaire did something he had still yet to do during the past seven months: He lived up to his campaign trail performance on the debate stage. During the first five GOP get-togethers, Trump repeatedly found himself absorbing attacks from everyone from Fox News‘ Megyn Kelly to Carly Fiorina. And when Trump wasn’t fending off parries from his rivals or the moderators at...

In the aftermath of last year's Dylann Roof massacre, Houston once again confronted its Confederate past. There were calls to remove certain statues from city parks, to rechristen certain streets, and to rename several schools dubbed after Confederate leaders. As of late last year, that list of educational institutions was comprised of high schools bearing the names of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, postmaster general John Reagan, and top commander of the Confederate Army Robert E. Lee. Also on the list were middle schools named after rebel generals Stonewall Jackson, Texan Albert Sidney Johnston, and Dick Dowling, the Irish-born Houstonian whose...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Actress Kirstie Alley said Thursday that she admires GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump for shaking up the political debate. "Donald Trump, whether you like him or you don't like him, is waking this country up," she told FoxBusiness.com. "If you hate him, you're going to talk about how much you hate him," Alley continued. "If you love him, you're going to talk about how much you love him. "I want someone who will rev us up and make us pay attention. I think that's a really great step for this country because this country's gotten very complacent." Alley said...

The American government is officially putting a giant vote of confidence behind self-driving cars. And the cash to back it up. Today, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is announcing a nearly $4 billion plan that’ll help manufacturers and tech companies develop safe, automated vehicles in the next ten years with real-world pilot projects. It’s all part of President Obama’s plan to make American transportation as futuristic as possible. The funds, which have been set aside in the proposed federal budget for 2017, will go toward pilot programs in specific transportation corridors in the US. The government will then work with...

That was a masterful take down by Ted Cruz on Donald Trump. From Trump supporters like me, to Cruz supporters like you, we can't deny that it was crisp and clever and knocked Trump back on his heals. The problem is mockery. Not that Trump can't handle some, but it's confusing for him. Therein may lie his Achilles heal. He's genuinely confused -- thinking I am successful, I have done great things. Why am I being mocked? When in fact his layman's understanding is being mocked and belittled by political theoreticians. Thus they are mocking us. Trump is real world...

1. He is still indebted to Goldman. (“As for the Goldman Sachs loan, it remains outstanding, though the balance has been reduced to between $50,000 and $100,000.”) Goldman, among other things, employs hundreds of workers on H-1B visas. Cruz used to advocate a huge increase in the number of H-1B visas, without, of course, saying he was on the hook to Goldman. Now, of course, Cruz wants to end H-1B visas. Maybe he should have taken out a loan from a bank that employed more Americans. 2. He didn’t simply “forget” to file the disclosure; he made up a self-reverential...

Please feel free to check out: A Clip from Amazing Grace Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners- of whom I am the worst. 1 Timothy 1:15 (NIV) ----

Fifth-grader turned part-time gardener Emma Leyson is showing off her greens on Muse School’s campus. “This is the strawberry plant I planted,” Leyson told CBS2’s Stephanie Simmons. Thought to be the first of its kind in the country, the school recently adopted an all-vegan lunch menu. As part of their curriculum, the students learn how to create food from seed to table. --snip-- Paul Hudak, who runs the program at Muse, works closely with the school’s master chef to prepare a variety of vegan choices for the kids. --snip-- Before rolling out the new menu this school year, the staff...

Billionaire Donald J. Trump, an early presidential favorite among tea party activists, has a highly unusual history of political contributions for a prospective Republican candidate: He has given most of his money to the other side. ..... Former congressman Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who served as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Trump’s close ties to some Democrats would be "a huge obstacle, but it’s not insurmountable." Trump, he added, would not be running as a "purity" candidate.

A Las Vegas woman accused of brutally murdering a 10-year-old girl has accepted a plea deal. Brenda Stokes Wilson agreed Thursday to plead guilty to first-degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon, murder with a deadly weapon, burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon, attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon, and mayhem with the use of a deadly weapon. Metro Police said 53-year-old Wilson killed Jade Morris in Dec. 2012. Police said Wilson picked Jade up on Friday, Dec. 21 to take her Christmas shopping.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Lindsay Legault-Knowles is the kind of voter the Republican Party is desperate to rouse. She is white and from working-class Vermont. She fears the changes happening all around her. "It's hard for me to have friends," she said, "because everyone seems to disagree." She drove here on a cold January night to make phone calls on Ted Cruz's behalf. The presidential candidate's wife showed up, too. With a silk Hermès scarf draped over her shoulders, Heidi Cruz, a former Goldman Sachs executive, sat down at the campaign office next to the college student, who wore a Confederate...

The researchers had shown that fragmented sleep - which is sleep interrupted by frequent awakenings or arousals — was linked with an increased risk of dementia and cognitive decline, Lim told Live Science. "However, there were gaps in what we knew about underlying brain changes that may link sleep fragmentation with these neurological outcomes," he said. In the new study, the researchers looked at the brains of 315 people who underwent autopsies after they died. The people were 90 years old, on average, when they died, and 70 percent were women. At some point before they died, the people in...

The carcass was remarkably well preserved, but something was clearly wrong. A rounded hole through the interior jugal. Deep incisions along the ribs. Dents in the left scapula. A broken mandible. This 45,000 year-old mammoth's life ended violently at the hands of hunters. That wouldn't be surprising-it's well known that Pleistocene humans were expert mammoth killers=but for the location. It was excavated from a permafrost embankment at Yenisei bay, a remote spot in central Siberia where a massive river empties into the Arctic Ocean. That makes this brutalized mammoth the oldest evidence for human expansion into the high Arctic by...

The GOP candidates gather in South Carolina, as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz duel for the lead in Iowa!

The World Health Organization declared an end to the deadliest Ebola outbreak ever on Thursday after no new cases emerged in Liberia, though health officials warn that it will be several more months before the world is considered free of the disease that claimed more than 11,300 lives over two years. Thursday's success comes after a harrowing toll: Nearly 23,000 children lost at least one parent or caregiver to the disease. Some 17,000 survivors are trying to resume their lives though many battle mysterious, lingering side effects. Studies continue to uncover new information about how long Ebola can last in...

Appeals for African American leaders to step up and protect unborn babies from abortion are growing louder and louder this month as more pro-life advocates call on politicians to end their support of the abortion industry and instead defend the vulnerable. The latest appeal came from one of America’s most prominent black families. Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a pro-life advocate, wrote an open letter to President Barack Obama this week, asking him to end abortion violence against unborn children. CNS News published King’s letter on Jan. 12: … Sir, you recently tweeted:...

Tonight’s GOP debate was Ted Cruz’s night. He went right after Donald Trump multiple times, but in a way that came across as forceful and informed, but not nasty. He also fended off a pretty vigorous attack from Marco Rubio. His strongest points came early and against Trump, when the audience would be the largest. Trump was runner-up. He had a good moment on Cruz’s slam on “NY Values,” but I’m not sure how defending NY values plays outside NY. His performance will confirm pre-existing views of him.

Kansas' medical board is taking no action against a Planned Parenthood clinic after completing an investigation into whether illegal sales of fetal tissue are occurring after abortions, a board document shows. "We absolutely feel vindicated by this," Laura McQuade, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, said Thursday. A State Board of Healing Arts disciplinary attorney sent a letter to Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri last week saying the board's disciplinary staff had investigated the organization's clinic in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas. The Associated Press on Thursday obtained a copy of the...